Remember when we believed that a clever, fully interconnected system would make everybody's life easier?
Man, nothing like taking years of reality like a brick to the back of the skull...
I could just do with some popcorn right now. I am loitering among the sick and deranged. The selfish fools decided to pile into the chemist's at 9am, the very moment I sensibly chose to visit. Half of them seem to be loitering around the entrance, jabbing urgently at their smartphones and muttering to themselves. The popcorn …
Don't you see the need for complications? The need for overly complex systems?
If everything just worked, why would you need all those people and apps to help you with those systems? The utopia of functional computers and software is a the dictatorship of unemployment. And, besides, don't you love to bitch about non-functional systems? The whole money machine of support, frustration, updates and upgrades gone if all just worked. It is unheard of. It is impossible.
The computerised LloydsPharmacy system they forced me on to, promising to take all the pain out of repeat prescriptions, has been nothing but a disaster, has failed to provide a delivery on the day due ever since being introduced.
I really cannot fathom how any computerised ordering system could fare so badly every single time.
Here in the USA, we have CVS, (formerly: Consumer Value Stores) who after thoughtful consideration have decided that kilometer long register receipts (coupons valid for three days) and constant reminder phone calls are the best way to build customer loyalty.
Oh, and they automatically refill your prescriptions, even if they're one-offs. Then call you to tell you they're ready. All without you having asked them to.
They are rapidly taking over the pharmacy market here in the northeast US. Also the "pills by mail" market for the insurance providers. Quickly becoming the only provider. And their employees and computer systems are overworked...
And this is what I find so crazy about Conspiracy theorists - Despite all the proof in the world that no government department anywhere can make any system run with anything even remotely like efficiency, and that private companies are absolutely no better, they still somehow believe that some grand conspiracy is able to, in secret, run everything in the background to get us all infected with mind control drugs/germs/nanobots/alien parasites/delete as appropriate.
Any attempt to do such a thing would fail at the first hurdle as some bureuacrat would demand that the secret memo be retyped up in Letter format, scanned into some long forgotten proprietary pdf-like format, stored in some long lost database program, requiring a licence which can no longer be obtained, and then approved by a dozen people who use various versions of the approval software, none of which are backwards compatable.
Real life gives us so many prime examples that this sort of stuff just doesnt work, and yet conspirarcy theorists always want to believe...
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By 1968 they were so far behind schedule with faking the moon landing, that they had no options left. They loaded the entire film crew into a rocket, and faked the landing on the moon.
Those who suspected anything just thought the rocket was a prop full of concrete blocks, and were busy looking in New Mexico for the set, while it was sitting right above in plain view the whole time.
NO! A thousand times No!
I've been working as a developer for over 3 decades. Nothing is worse than a "clever" idea. Give me simple ideas, straight forward ideas and well known, tested patterns. That's what makes things work.
Keep is simple, stupid!
Obviously the person who is "answering" the webpage must be going to print out the details of each "caller" so that they can type them into another system.
This kind of nonsense is the reason why I requested a free proof of jab letter the moment they were offered, as I knew any digital system would be utter crap.
To expand on the documentation part: I visited Denmark last week and had vaccine certificate in an App, as PDF and printed as well (just in case, IT past. Boarding cards too…). The app worked fine.
BTW, I think the high vaccination rates in Portugal is at least partly due to many knowing the difference vaccines make. There were polio outbreaks in the sixties and a family member, born 1979, caught TB as a young child. Salazar was anti-vaxer.
"Did you try booking a 3rd jab on Doctolib last night? Webpage came up with a, "You are in a queue of people waiting to access this site. Waiting time is 28 mins.""
Well, it's France and everyone wait for Micron to tell it stuff before rushing to doctolib, like every previous times.
Myself ? I did it last tuesday :) No waiting !
I discovered yesterday that the Euro Covpass app has suddenly acquired the ability to produce a pdf of the vaccination (paper) form which you, er, scanned with the app to get the certificate in the first place.
I think they must have got fed up with folk like me standing in airports screaming at the app because one arm of the government says, nope, you can't get a screen shot from this app, and another arm says 'attach a pdf to your locator form'... that time I solved it by using another phone to photograph the first one, and vice versa. Brilliant, joined up thinking.
I know several people who've ended up having to get vaccinated twice owing to the lack of interoperability of various systems, Given the UK is apparently offering no form of proof for your booster jab, I expect that number to increase. The user is usually at the bottom of the pile when it comes to IT, government and medicine. Put them all together...
"Given the UK is apparently offering no form of proof for your booster jab, I expect that number to increase. "
The record of my booster appeared in my NHS app after a couple of days, both in my GP Records section and in the Covid pass section. Also the pdf document with the QR codes is now two pages with the booster details on 2nd page, more papers to fumble with at the check-in desk !
Yep, it’s a recent update. At first it didn’t show them and it was all over the news about how it was affecting travel to places demanding the booster as they had sent an expiry date to the first jabs. Now the booster appears in the NHS App. (The Corona-Warn-App in Germany has supported booster jabs for quite a while)
My GP app annoyingly under vaccinations lists "reminder sent" and a date for every reminder I've been sent. It lists the vaccinations too but it just means wading through a mire of irrelevant notes. Especially annoying as I get my jabs from work usually weeks before the GP gets round to it. At least now the jabs from work end up in the GP's records.
I also got my 2 jabs on a little card, which I immediately laminated along with those of everyone else in my department. At that point, we were hearing how the infectiously stupid were campaigning against "covid passports" or something and I wanted to make sure I actually got one of those!
When I got the booster, I got a similar card with only one box filled in and as we actually do have proper proof, I haven't felt the need to laminate it.
I can only access the proof on the C19 nanobot shot about 1 out 3 attempts on my Spanish phone and then can only look at it I can't email it, save it to files or anything else.
However the same proof accessed via my PC can be printed, screen shot and saved to file. Fortunately, I have no other health issues but when my wife tries to get an appointment, it is easier to go to the A&E rather than the polyclinic or make an online appointment.
I *always* have things on paper with me when I travel, simply because Murphy's Law will either ensure your email client has not downloaded the attachment (or has zapped it again to save space), and it's guaranteed you will be asked for the data when your phone is still busy acquiring a network of where you have just landed - or your phone battery is simply dead. It also is *much* easier if they want multiple things like evidence of vaccination and the code of a filled out PLF - instead of having to fiddle with a phone it's simply on the next page.
This is why I generally get through all the checks so fast .. that I then have to wait the half hour it takes to get the luggage onto the caroussel.
:)
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> [...] suffering from posterization due to lossy over-compression in the codec
> as a result of poor bandwidth and that my skin would clear up by itself
> if he stood closer to his window.
I should know better than to read your posts in public places. The whole mall looked at me with concern, and this was on Black Friday.
I like to remind pedants in Britainland that the word "holiday" was traditionally used on the right-hand side of the Atlantic right into the 20th century to mean any time off from work, not just full-on seasonal vacations.
Pedants will remind you that "holiday" is just a mis-spelling/pronunciation of "holy day" and that Christmas meets that definition. If you don't want to recognise it as such get back to work.
I've got absolutely no problems with the end of year holiday season being described in such neutral terms: different people are celebrating different things, Yule in my case, although more as an acknowledgement of midwinter than anything with any significantly greater 'meaning', and we certainly had dibs on decorated trees and the like before that other lot came along (although they are welcome to share the tradition). In a modern world, I do find the very heavyweight presumption that "everyone" is celebrating what for many/most people is someone else's mythology a little bit grating and mildly offensive, when I very emphatically am not. There's a lot to be said for French-style laïcité, celebrate your own celebrations, but don't attempt to impose them on others. Perfectly happy to share the feasting, drinking and being merry part with everyone, regardless of your own reason for celebration, of course.
As for holidays from work, I'd much rather refer to them as such (even if it's only a day off or a lazycation) instead of the horrid "on annual leave" that seems to be creeping into use, which always seems like a horrible cap-doffing term designed to suggest to you that you are only freed from the shackles of work under extreme forbearance.
It comes and goes. When I started work around 1980 everyone took "holiday". But my father always took "leave". But he did national service - I always assumed leave was a military term that all his contemporaries acquired from that. But then, "leave" made a comeback - I think in the 90s starting in the civil service.
It comes and goes.
I know it's "Cracked" which has gone to garbage, but this is worth a read or two
https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-true-meaning-christmas-that-everyone-forgets
In a modern world, I do find the very heavyweight presumption that "everyone" is celebrating what for many/most people is someone else's mythology a little bit grating and mildly offensive, when I very emphatically am not
.
In the manga image site I favour there was a picture of two dear little chibis from Arknights, a Chinese game, celebrating Thanksgiving.
Since the game --- which I do not play --- is set on a different planet; and since only 5 countries on this planet, some of them quite small, celebrate this strange feast --- this seems implausible...
I can heartily recommend Budesonide nasal spray.
After 20 years I'd almost given up going to the doctor's, only to be told "Oh - it's [summer|winter], it's probably just [hay fever|a cold]". One year this very nice doctor actually tried to do something about it.
Best drug I've ever taken :-)
I'm an antihistamine dependent as well. The trick is finding one that works and that doesn't make you too drowsy to function.
Slightly strangely I find that Piriton is just the job for me, without the drowsiness that a lot of people report.
I once made the mistake of buying some Piriteze on the assumption that as it sounds like Pirition then that must be the magic ingredient. I learned the hard way that (a) Piriteze is actually Cetirizine, and (b) Cetirizine will make me fall asleep whilst talking in the middle of a meeting.
Meh, if they still had Minitel, I'm sure all of that convoluted process would have worked perfectly smoothly!
(Well, apart from the video consultation part, trying to convert the images of you and the doctor to ASCII-art for transmission would be rather taxing, and the needed cameras would probably cost about Fr 40 000…)
I don't get ill in the way I am supposed to. I get hay fever in the winter. Only in the winter.
I get 'hayfever' in Autumn and Spring. Although I remember 2014 when it lasted from October to March with only a brief respite around New Year's when there was a cold snap
It's fungi and trees that cause the problem. And you do feel a bit of a fool going into a chemist's to get hayfever medication in November.
One of the few sites that gives fungus and tree information.
'Penicillium, Aspergillus and Basidiospores (from mushrooms/toadstools) will continue to be airborne during dry weather at a generally moderate risk. Visit our fungal spore webpage for more info.'
Which is why I'm currently back on the Certirizine :/
I have a very mild allergy to something, that presents a bit like hayfever. However it's made considerably worse by air conditioning so when I was a student working in a supermarket I had to have a prescription for cetirizine so people didn't ask me if I'd been crying constantly. Plus people object to their food being sneezed on....
To this day some buildings with older air conditiong will set it off, worst place ever was an old client that was a factory that made cardboard boxes. The dust in that place made me sneeze constantly.
The network team at a large bank sent us a screen shot of a spreadsheet of IP addresses they wanted monitored by the SIEM. Head of Networks got quite annoyed when we asked for something we could cut&paste or import rather than error prone typing from screenshots. But then this was the same clown who insisted on dumping SSL decrypted customer Internet Banking session logs from F5s over syslog to the SIEM for "diagnosic purposes", but thats another story.
Forgive me for having recounted this before in a different topic, but I once taught an ageing lab assistant how to use the new-fangled scanner we'd just installed.
A large part of her job was writing SOPs for the factory, and she'd spend ages cutting up the user manuals and sticking diagrams and photographs on to A4 paper with Sellotape to include in the master copy, which would then be photocopied and distributed to the departments. The master copy would spend the next months silently degrading the glue on the Sellotape in the Master Folder on the SOP shelf, ready to shed all the stuck-on photos and diagrams into a heap if anyone got their working SOP wet and wanted a new copy.
She'd seen me incorporating scans and digital photos into documents I was writing, and I was asked to teach her how to do it.
It took many, many weeks just to get her to be able to turn on the scanner and access it from a PC, and many more to show her how to use a graphics program(me) to clip the photos and diagrams electronically, and then paste them into documents. And don't get me started on explaining how to use wrapping to add titles or arrows to the clipped images. We had all the episodes of chucking toys out of the pram and threatening to resign. When she'd finally got it, I concluded my task was over.
One morning, I came in only to find her cutting out images she'd scanned and printed out so she could stick them into the documents she was creating using Sellotape.
I got a rollocking from the PHB for laughing.
At $job[-1] we built a product for $customer. The product and customer were inherited from $job[-2] (a company closed down, $job[-1] was created from the debris, you know the drill).
At some point, I needed to reference some drawings for the product. The drawings had been designed for $customer at $job[-2] as part of the turnkey service we provided. At some point in time, the drawings were in a native CAD format, and were possibly even exported to .pdf. The copy we had was generated by:
1) Printing the CAD file
2) Scanning and faxing the CAD file from $job[-2] to $customer.
3) $customer printed the fax
4) $customer signed off on the design.
5) $customer scanned and faxed the document back to $job[-2]
6) $job[-2] printed the fax (they had a fax server, so why print? oh, that's so they could:
7) $job[-2] stamped the printout with a reference number and receipt date stamp
8) $job[-2] scanned the printout in (at about 300 dpi)
Terrible? Yes, but we somehow made it even worse. The document I had in our possession at $job[-1] wasn't from step #8. Oh, no, for some reason $job[-2] had decided to REPEAT steps 3-8. I know because the document I had available had a second reference number and date stamp!
"This done, she feeds my freshly printed prescription into a scanner at the till. She literally scans the document she has just printed back into the system, and hands me the printout as a parting gift."
Almost 2 decades ago, one british colleague came to work here in France.
Like everyone else, he received the then new "carte vitale", that poticos said would be a revolution, with automatic connection from GP to hospital, universal health cover, complementary cover etc ...
Basically, the mystical "no paper", no advance paiement from patients.
He explained to me how his first medicines purchase went: "you know what, she scanned my carte vitale !! Cos she'd just use the ID number on it !"
Then, the usual paperwork, and of course ... you pay everything in advance and hope for the best for reimbursement ...
I was chatting the other day with a friend and he told me, for some jobs category like his, it is still the case !
Welcome to France, where the view from the top and from the field has absolutely no connection.
There's ab important bit of information missing here, surely because it'd spoil the joke a little : in France, the pharmacists print information on the baxk of a prescription when it's delivered.
So hardcopy is a must no matter what.
And then, scanning it afterwards is surely faster than trying to move a PDF attachment to whatever system all pharmacies have to use.
I think the Saturday afternoon off was not something offered by a generous employer. I think it must have been through an Act of Parliament. Curiously, when I was an engineering apprentice in a factory in the South of England, you were allowed (if your were lucky), to work overtime on Saturday morning, but only if you'd already worked overtime on at least three days of the week. if you were even luckier, you might be offered overtime on Sunday, at the even better return of double time (time and a half, on Saturday). It was explained that overtime on Saturday afternoon was 'Against the Law'. So, if it had been ordained that Saturday afternoons were 'holiday', it would equally apply to overtime, too. Since Sunday was God's day, Parliament didn't consider the need to enact a Law regarding the Working Day, so overtime for the whole day remained an option. One did not turn down an offer to work overtime, ever. Turning down an option, we were told, would, most likely, result in one not being asked again.
I recall a consultant telling me how he had done his apprenticeship at a steelworks where one department existed for historical reasons but had no application in the 'modern' time. There was no work to do. He was criticised for not taking the overtime when offered.
That consultant had a strange career progression: Mechanical Apprentice, Town Hall traffic planner, Electrical Engineer (standby-power, auto-start, peak-lopping, back-synchronising diesel-generator project)....
The HIS is passing requests to the departmental stand alone system. The HIS also prints out a bit of paper in the department. We have to manually indicate we have seen the electronic request to do anything with it moving it from one electronic silo into another.
Meanwhile we scan in the paper which has no information that is not already in the RIS. Which is then given to people to remind them to process the electronic requests
The bit of paper will be scanned another 2-3 times despite having allegedly the capability of a fully electronic workflow.
And when we update the local system with new info/instructions to change the tests sometimes the obsolete paper is used to do something different.
And if we lose the redundant bit of paper, we get printed out low res screen shots with 30mm borders which then get scanned in (steps 3-8).
Great for cross site working
[FAIL icon n/a for AC]
In the 80s I had a bike accident and went to A&E. They took my details and I noted they typed them into an electronic terminal. Very high tech compared to previous visits.
The information was sent digitally down the corridor to the A&E's main station where the staff hung around drinking coffee and filling in paperwork etc
The information taken at reception was then printed onto an index card which dropped out of the printer into a little wire tray where it sat waiting for someone to pick it up and find the patient.
And that's all the electronic system did. No electronic notes or look ups. The department opened up a new file for each patient's notes, the card plus the notes plus copies of any prescriptions (written on carbon pads!) went into the file and never ended up in your GP records.
I recently booked my Covid booster online at the main centre a mile away from home. Then my nearby GP surgery rang me to offer a flu jab - and also said that they could book me for the Covid booster at the surgery too. "More convenient for you". So I cancelled the booster appointment at the main centre.
Turned up at the surgery for the Covid jab. "You shouldn't be here - the <satellite> surgery is where we are doing Covid/flu vaccinations". That is a 6km round walk to the top of a very steep hill. Receptionist tells me that a nearby high street chain pharmacy can do the flu jab.
Pharmacy says they are waiting for flu vaccine supplies and to try again in a couple of weeks ...or "Try Tesco". Look online - Tesco have no vaccine.
Two weeks later the GP surgery have rang, an email has arrived, plus two NHS letters - all telling me it is important to get a flu jab.
Go to the high street chain pharmacy again. Yes - they now have flu vaccine - "are you one of our customers?" By which it transpires they mean do I get my repeat prescriptions from them - rather than the long-established independent pharmacy a few doors away. "Flu vaccine is reserved for our customers - go to Boots". Look online - no Boots pharmacies in England have any flu vaccine.
Go home and mark my door with the blood of a sacrificed lamb.
At least I managed to rebook my Covid booster at the main centre - tick in that box two weeks later.
Aaargh! Don't mess with things once they're set. It can only ever go bad if you do :-)
It's bad enough if you follow the system.
I had my COVID booster initially booked for last week. I'd been checking the NHS site, and it told me I wasn't eligible (I wasn't, it was the six month thing). But when I knew I should be, I checked again, and I was eligible, so I booked.
I turned up, played musical chairs for 20 minutes as we gradually moved down the socially-distanced line of the medical centre I was in, and sat down in front of the nurse. They took all my details (on computer), brought out the syringe... only for the nurse to say 'Oh. You're two days early!'
I said 'But my date is on the booking'. She said 'No, you can't have it for another two days - it's 160 days from the 2nd shot'. Damned system never told me that, and it let me book.
They were very apologetic, but I just said 'look, it's not your fault. The system let me book. It's just a wasted journey, and not the end of the world.'
I booked another one when I got home - this time much closer to home, which wasn't an available venue a week earlier. And only two days after my 160-day thing. Had it on Monday this week. This time, I went in (admittedly, having to ask for directions, since the NHS vaccination location map showed one end of Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club, where it turned out to be the opposite end). This one was predominantly a paper exercise booking in, and I was jabbed immediately after sitting down.
Apart from an achy arm, I am still here - though apparently I am one of the billions who have allegedly died from the vaccine according to certain forums.
Had my flu jab separately at my GP a month ago. They don't do COVID. I even forgot, in spite of remembering the night before, and they phoned me to find out where I was, and did me in the 15 minutes it took me to drive there, 45 minutes after my original appointment.
Overall, our system works, Just not perfectly. I'd give it between B+/A-
NHS IT bod...
We did booster jabs, but for first line only, so booked online for pharmacy down road. Only to turn up at my appointment time and find my booking not gone through. To be fair, I didn't get any error messages so assumed it was fine.
Tried again, different pharmacy closer to home only to get email saying that there will be no nurse that day so all jabs cancelled....
Then find out at work they will do all staff so went down next day on Friday.
Lessons learnt - if there is another booster
Get confirmation first
Get it done early in the week - if I get a reaction then I can get time off work, sucks feeling ill on a weekend
Dabbsy> hay fever in the winter. Only in the winter.
I have "hay fever" 11.5 months of the year. I can strongly suggest Loratadine 10mg (Claritin) 1/day, 300+ days a year. Almost no drowsy. 98% effective. For breakthrough drippy, a second Claritin is bad, a chlorpheniramine maleate 4mg works for a few hours but does sedate.
> the difference vaccines make. There were polio outbreaks in the sixties
And the 1950s, of course. I remember foot-baths at swimming pools. I remember being offered 'candy' by a 'stranger' (nurse offering Polio Vac on a sugar cube). I worked with a gal who probably survived Polio (her family was too dirt-poor to get proper treatment). I have the Smallpox Vacc scar. In the 1990s I worked with young Chinese who had the vacc scar. My housemate survived Rheumatic Fever (no vacc). My mother is still upset by Measles. We lost family in the 1918 Flu.
> ...get an allergy test mate... Could be you don't have hayfever per se but an allergy to something else...
How can he have Hay Fever? Most people today never see hay! In the US a lot of snot is blamed on Ragweed. I can snort that stuff freely; Goldenrod is for me instant attack. But there is something every month, plus pets and paper-dust. (Over-thick furnace filter helps a little.)
As for Dabbsy's complaint: I must say, this last decade, in the US, with a good plan, getting prescriptions filled has been 90% no-problem. If we are in a rush, doc's helper wires it to my designated superstore chain pharmacy, their phone-robot may call "Ready!" before I get home. Never need paper or even ID to get my drugs. But I also have a "Plan", who will take-over the Rx and mail me 90-day supplies. (Even if it was a one-shot Rx, like colonoscopy prep or VD antibiotics, idiots.)
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> Upvote for Loratadine. .... bulk packs (6 months or one year's supply). ....
After some US hunting, I found that Costco (warehouse club) sells 365-Count bottles, Pack of 2 bottles, $27.48. Which is like 4 pennies a day. And Amazon will ship them to me cheaper than dealing with Costco directly (I think there is a 3rd or 4th party in this transaction).
Thanks for the upvote. I grew up with heavy pills that hardly slowed drip but left me half asleep for months. (TMI) I developed pee trouble and doc advised me off the "old style" antihistamines, Consumer Reports rated Claritin as one of the modern sniffle-pills. Glad it works for us.
I dunno; in Britain if the NHS GP uses the Systmonline site, once a prescription has been prescribed by a doctor, all one's medications can be managed and ordered online, delivered free --- including a request box for different medicines ( E.G..in my case Zapain tablets ).
Utterly simple and never had a single problem.
.
On the other hand...The mandatory free covid test thing I had to take a week before my arm operation, was booked for near the hospital 45 miles away; I rang and asked if I could get it nearer not to waste a day, and they said sure.
However, the only testing in the market town was done by Boots, who instead of free wished to gouge £87 for that. The Free Market strikes again !
.
I went to the original testing site...
The Systmonline prescriptions web page used to be quite efficient. It said how many repeats were left and when the final one would be.
Now it just offers the tick boxes - possibly. Different renewals appear to effect different processes. Sometimes the tick boxes don't appear - as the whole set have been transferred to the pharmacy's system. No one seems to have any advance warning - especially me - when the renewal is overdue. To effect a renewal needs a GP review - which is no longer an online option but requires the phone call route.
In lockdown the online system should have been nicely efficient. Instead my GPs' centre has greyed out most of the booking and messaging services.
I've also experienced an additional issue with it.
Tablet x - pack of 58. Take 2 per day. Last issued 17 Oct. Next reorder 6 Dec (or words to that effect).
The check box is greyed out and I then have to phone the doctor to get them to reorder, just because the computer a) can't count, and b) says no.
... I am about to check a box to digitally request a periodic prescription for essential medication I've been taking for almost 25 years.
That will work well enough - from a computer, in a browser. The medical service provider also has a smartphone app that they keep telling everyone to use but that I (and, judging from reviews, quite a few others) could never make start on my phone. To be fair, it probably starts as far as the operating system is concerned. The UX, in Dabbsy's words, is that the phone screen goes black and the device becomes really hot, until I powercycle it - multiple tries taught me to do it before it becomes too hot to handle. Never mind - the web site does work, and I am fairly confident the GP will issue 3 prescriptions for the next 3 months that will automagically appear in a database used by computers at the (provider-branded) pharmacy chain.
From (bitter) experience through the years since the provider went all digital I know to ask the pharmacist for all the 3 months' worth of meds in one go. If I decide to do it month-by-month the first two times will be fine, but on the third try the pharmacist will tell me that "the computer says" that I need a new prescription. To me, it is obvious that there is some kind of an off-by-one bug (in a loop of 3 iterations!), but no matter how many times I complained in the past it was never fixed. I started asking the GP to print out the prescriptions and I started printing out the PDFs that the website helpfully provides, and I started taking the printouts to the till as proof that there should be another prescription, but it turned out that the provider had gone "completely digital" (is it a new euphemism of some sort meaning something or other?) and the printed documents were not actual prescriptions but only records of what the GP's PC, or the web server, or maybe the printer thought should be in the pharmacy's database at the time of printing. At the till inside the pharmacy it does not matter one single bit - "I don't see your prescription in the system sir..."
The queues are managed a lot better here than at Dabbsy's pharmacy though. You enter and press a button on a little device dispensing a paper slip with a number. The next customer's number is announced on a tannoy and displayed on large TV sceeens on the pharmacy's walls. I broke down when I saw a full screen "Error in error message" message (sic!) on those TV screens one day (talk of BORK!BORK!BORK!) and asked the pharmacist if I could keep a 3 month supply of my meds in a fridge safely. He said yes, and I stopped dealing with the loop termination bug there and then.
Now, here's that checkbox in the digital prescription request again...
Being French, everyone else is randomly positioned around the till, spaced one metre apart as if ready to play dodgeball
Mr Dabbs. is perhaps overgeneralizing. But living in a part of France where laws and rules were obviously made to be overruled, he may be forgiven to believe it's the same everywhere.
"But living in a part of France where laws and rules were obviously made to be overruled"
I thought that was pretty much most places in France, especially EU laws and regulations (include the southern EU nations in that) - which is where the British didn't quite get it - they ended up invariably gold-plating whatever the EU requirements were and then complaining about them afterwards
Having acquired my Carte Vitale (and my wife, her's) things do work quite well e.g. turning up for La Grippe immunisation (no appt accepted at pharmacie).
Problem is that French are so anarchistic that they have devised a (many duplicate?) system to apply order ("bureaucracy" aka rule by office) to the population.
Does wor;, they all complain, sometimes protest (loudly), complain over officials, comply (so the state works(ish).
TousCovid app does work also
Love 'em (fix my french plated RHD car without issue; unlike dealer in UK)
The flagrant Ignobel Prize-fishing research you linked to specifically calls out queuing as an experience that *can* be enhanced by popcorn.
The time to avoid it is when you're watching something that's actually entertaining. As a rule of thumb, if you forgot to eat the popcorn, chances are the movie was pretty good.
Some years ago my beloved employers decided to change job applications from paper to online. Here's how it worked ...
Anybody interested filled in an online form. At HQ this was used to produce a simulacrum of the paper form, which was printed out. The printout was then scanned and emailed to every office (of thirteen) in which the applicant had expressed interested in working. In each of those places a clerk then typed information from the scan of the printout of the formatted data entry into a spreadsheet, which was emailed to the people making the appointments.
The Operations Management team had to use their computer system to send an eFax to you because you were obliged to only accept an instruction if it was in writing.
At which point, once you read and understood it, if it only applied to you then you could email your acknowledgement and then throw it in the bin.
That was despite the fact that every phone call was (alledgedly) recorded (but easily deleted) unless I highlighted the Operations Management team did something wrong.
It's not hayfever, it's allergy.
Probably to the pollen from Euphorbia pulcherrima
Commonly known as 'Poinsettia' and very popular as Christmas decorations.
One of the big bosses at my office was allergic, and she finaly got the building owners to stop giving one of those wretched things to every employee in the building.